


Something Dark and Silent

by Desilite



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Gratuitous Misuse of Homer, Hunting, Pre-Canon, Religion, mentoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:00:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27108355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desilite/pseuds/Desilite
Summary: In which Eva learns how to relate to teens and Grizzop goes on a highly unusual field trip.
Relationships: Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam & Artemis, Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam & Eva van Dijk
Comments: 25
Kudos: 29





	Something Dark and Silent

**Author's Note:**

> Grizzop is being raised by people who a.) are religious and raising him to be religious and b.) can get away with extrajudicial murder. Slight spoilers for Grizzop's Patreon backstory.
> 
> me in August: Man, I love the Rusty Quill Gaming Podcast! I will start writing a Brief Fanfiction to Give Back To The Community. It will take Maybe A Few Days. :)

Grizzop doesn’t believe. You can’t be too surprised, to be honest, after what he must have been through. Your lady knows you struggled, in the beginning. And belief’s not really necessary. It would be like not believing in seasons, or colors. 

You watch him from the classroom doorway where he sits cross-legged on the floor with the other acolytes, watching Marja skin a rabbit. He’s as attentive as the others, for all he’s half the size of most of them and his knife is as long as his forearm. He and a few others look up as you lean your good shoulder against the doorframe, and you nod to each of them before they turn back. Where the others focus on Marja with interest or nervousness, a few with boredom, Grizzop’s face is fierce. He’s concentrating, but there’s a hunger there that shouldn’t be.

Yesterday evening, when you’d led libations, you’d asked to him to give the invocation. You’ve coached him along with everyone else on forms and meters and structures, and he’s taken to it about as well as anyone else—the whole affair is more your lady’s brother’s thing, to be honest, and it’s not like she cares particularly about that aspect of it. Grizzop’s friendly to his peers and fast and good with a bow and that should be enough.

But his halting improvisation had been entirely too focused on authority and subservience, like he’d swallowed some paean to Zeus. You’d caught some raised eyebrows from the older worshippers in attendance and barely hidden grins from your fellow priests, and you’d moved on hurriedly after his chant to the set prayers before the feast.

Despite all the quiet conversations you’ve had with him and lectures he’s attended and practicals he’s completed, he doesn’t _get_ it, you’re sure of it. He takes to it well, seems to enjoy it plenty, but he can’t see the connection between the training and the _point_ of the training. He delights too much in his own strength, not the source of it. You remember how much of a relief it had been when you finally understood how your mentors had felt about each other, how your lady feels about you, and you don’t know why he’s so resistant to joining the pack.

Marja smoothly pulls the rabbit’s hind feet out of its skin and gestures for her students to follow her example. Assorted ripping and tearing noises follow, along with a few accompanying shouts and elbow jabs. Grizzop grins to himself at the yells of his classmates and turns to his own rabbit. You keep an eye on his technique as he carefully relieves the rabbit of its skin—it’s something you’ve taught him several times, and you hope the most recent effort stuck.

It should be good just to see him smiling, to see him interacting with the world around him and leaving your side for more than five minutes at a time. You have your own duties in the city, healing and hunting and hunting-related paperwork, and all the training in the world didn’t make it easier to talk down a thief or carry out an investigation with a baby goblin trailing you all those months, for all you care about him. You should be happy to see him learning and growing and making friends. You _are_ happy.

But he’s still got that intense look on his face as he separates the last fibers with a fierce yank and looks up again at you. There’s no peace and no satisfaction there, only smug triumph. His smile is wide and sharp and unnerving, and you do not look away. 

“What’s our next step?” Marja asks.

“Wrapping the thighs,” someone offers. She nods approvingly, and takes them through the rest of the ritual. You come over at the appropriate moment to help them all wash their hands before presenting their offerings at the fire.

As you all raise your hands, a cool breeze wafts through the room from an indiscernible source, and for the briefest of seconds your mismatched group of worshippers becomes one pack, breathing in unison like some great beast. It’s only for a moment—you _live_ for these moments—and then you return to yourself, observe which of the students felt it and which didn’t. Grizzop’s standing there bemused, and you make a valiant effort not to be disappointed.

As you’re conferring with Marja, after the acolytes have been dismissed to clean up and eat their rabbits, you hear a familiar and well-worn fight picking up:

“ _Diomedes_ was able to stab a _god_ , Carina, right in the hand. He’d take down Heracles _easy_.”

“Yeah, well Heracles _became_ a god, sort of— no, listen, I was talking to some Zeus kid yesterday—”

“Guys, it doesn’t matter if _you’re_ powerful enough, just whether you have the right people on your side. Grizzop, what was your line?”

“Achilles,” says Grizzop archly, “could not only absolutely murder all your guys, he also had about five gods helping him. Remember how he outfought Scamander? A literal _river_ —”

“That is _not_ what happened—”

“— _and_ unlike Odysseus, Anne, he wasn’t stopping every five minutes to check in with some patron—”

“Odysseus did _not_ , and anyway, at least he had some _subtlety_ —”

“Hang on, by _subtlety_ , do you mean _completely abandoning your friends at the first sign of danger and not even_ trying _to avenge them_ — and Achilles actually survived his aristeia, what’s the point of a last stand if you don’t get to enjoy yourself afterwards—” 

“All of you are forgetting about Hector—”

This last is greeted by assorted boos and jeers as the students file out the door, waving at you and Marja as they exit. You both raise a hand in return.

“Good group,” Marja says. She gives you a sideways look. “Yours keeps surprising me, Eva. Not bad at all. And I don’t know _what_ you’re feeding him—”

“Yeah, okay,” you cut her off, poking her arm. “I don’t know what you were expecting from Grizzop.” You’ve been pretending not to know about the betting pool, and she’s been pretending not to know that you know, for months now. “And like you were any better, Ms. _No elf blood in me, I swear_.”

She rolls her eyes and grins. “And as I _recall,_ you used to insist Aeneas could beat Agamemnon in a fair fight. We’ve all made mistakes.”

You laugh, and turn to put the fire out.

* * *

You go to him that evening, where he sleeps in the acolytes’ room. The beds here are low cots and the walls are stone, but from the high windows the sunset is casting the room in yellows and oranges, and there’s a comfortable murmur of conversation as his peers prepare for bed. There’s some commotion going on near the door as you enter, but you ignore it. You and your fellow instructors believe strongly in the educational value of making your own mistakes.

He’s got a bed in a corner of the room, his pack at the foot of his cot, his possessions stored neatly and correctly. They’re all leaving before dawn on a field trip with Marja and yourself, and he’s checking his arrows, feeling with his fingertips for splintering, laying them out in a row on his blanket.

“Can I sit?” you ask, touching his shoulder. One ear twitches back to you a second before his face turns, and you’re reminded of the first hunt you took him on, back when he wouldn’t leave your side. You’d thought you’d have to keep him hidden yourself, but he’d proven to be surprisingly adept at making himself invisible once you’d shown him how, and furthermore at hearing threats long before you did with those big ears. He hadn’t so much as jumped when you’d returned to his alleyway, though you’re pretty sure with those eyes of his he could tell it was blood on your armor.

But here, now, you’re not a threat. “Oh. Hello,” he says, moving to sit at the head of the bed.

You sit at the other end and pick up an arrow. “Good luck tomorrow. Marja says your knifework is coming along well.”

“I prefer shooting, but you know. To each their own. Definitely beats plants.”

Privately, you agree. “You know you still need to pay attention when there’s no violence involved. No half measures.”

“I _know_ that,” he says. “But, look, I don’t need to be able to tell you what species a tree is to know when someone’s cutting it down who shouldn’t. I don’t need to know how many vertebrae in a dwarf to heal them.” He’s fiddling with the strap of his quiver, and it’s like talking to any other of the teenaged trainees, his sensitivity to condescension and sullen put-upon-ness. You’ve known him two years and he’s matured so fast, shot up in height if by inches and not feet, and you still don’t know how old he is, when he would be considered an adult by his own family.

You hold back a sigh and hand him the arrow. “In a few years, you’re going to start going out, taking commissions, getting assignments. I’m going to want to know that you’re as capable as everyone…” Damn. “…would expect,” you finish lamely.

He hears what you almost said, and his face twists momentarily. He starts gathering the rest of the arrows back into the quiver, and he’s angry, but he’s still handling them carefully, one by one. “Yeah. Absolutely.”

“Hey.” You scoot closer on the bed, hold out your arm a bit. An apology, or as close as you can get right now. Bedside manner, however literal, really isn’t your specialty. “You’re doing really well. I know you’re trying. I know she’s claimed you and she’s protecting you. That’s all anyone can ask for.” You’re trying to convince him as much as comfort him. You can make sure he has the skills, that he knows the prayers and the precepts, but the dedication, the _commitment_ has to come from him. By the gods do you wish you could just put the knowledge of how much he’s loved into his head. You didn’t join up with the Cult thinking you’d be doing a lot of parenting.

He finishes filling his quiver, rests it against the head of his bed, and seems to experience some intense internal conflict before closing the gap between you and burrowing into your side. You wrap your arm around him. Across the room, Anne has just managed to juggle three apples for the first time and is laughing triumphantly, while her friend brings the knives they were using to demonstrate to rest in their hands. There’s faint applause before a pillow hits the juggler square in the face, followed by a faint, “We’re up early tomorrow!”

You look down at Grizzop, who’s watching Anne with a genuine smile. He’s very warm, and he’s quivering faintly—residual anger, perhaps, or happiness, or maybe he’s just sleepy, too. Outside, you can feel the moon beginning to rise and you’re suddenly sharper than before, more focused. The faint links you can feel with the other students, the stronger one with Grizzop and the other instructors across the hall, intensify.

“What are you excited for tomorrow? Apart from the hunt?”

He cranes his neck up to look at you from where he’s leaning on your side. “ _You_ said you’d sneak us out marshmallows.”

Shit. You make a mental note. “Absolutely,” you say seriously. “Don’t tell anyone.”

His grin is luminous as he tries to wink at you. He mostly succeeds.

You hug him tighter briefly and let go. He stands and stretches, moving around you to replace his quiver in his pack.

“How,” he says when he straightens, and he’s trying to sound nonchalant, “how do you know? That she knows me?”

Oh boy. “Why do you ask?”

“In the stories,” Grizzop says, “they can’t tell right away that someone’s a god, but after a while, they can. Sofia says they can always feel when she’s helping them. They said that’s how they got their first bullseye.”

You gesture in the direction of the moon, although it’s still hidden behind the wall. “How do you think your spells work, if not that she’s watching you?”

“They don’t work yet,” he mutters. “Not every time. You _know_ that, you’re the one _teaching_ us magic—”

“And I can feel it,” you say. “You’re part of my pack, obviously. But you’re providing for her and she’s providing for you, and that means you’re also part of hers. That’s more important than anything you’ve ever had or will ever have, Grizzop, it’s the most important thing there _is_.”

You’ve said the wrong thing. His face crumples again where he stands in front of you, and then closes off.

“Right,” he says. He sits heavily back on the bed, farther away from you. “Okay. Thank you. I’ll pay attention tomorrow. I’ll bring you back something nice when we hunt.”

Anne turns out the lights in the room, and there’s the rustling and whispering of a room full of kids settling into bed. “Good night,” you say to Grizzop, and stand up. “And good luck, genuinely.”

You pick your way between the cots in the moonlight and look back when you reach the door. Grizzop’s curled on his side, facing away from you, but curving his neck around to stare out the luminous window. The bed dwarfs him, and you wish you could share just a fraction of your love with him across your bond. You wish you could say the right thing to him to show him the strength of the conviction and the rightness you feel every minute of your life these days. But the moon is rising, and you close the door behind you and head for the altars.

As you pass a window in the corridor, you reach out for your cat. She steps out of a moonbeam and pads along next to you until you reach the hallway where your peers are congregating. You sink a hand into her fur and she nudges your thigh with her nose and purrs and you feel slightly better.

You all quiet down as you hear a dog howling from far off, on the right. Could be a pet. You are in the middle of a city. Could be something more. It’s propitious, anyway, and as you file inside there’s an air of anticipation. You're all going hunting tomorrow.

* * *

The man who stumbles into your camp in the forest the next afternoon is obviously in need of help. You drop the pigeon you’re plucking and reach for your knife, but he reads to you as a light gray, only just edging darker, so you catch him when he trips into the hollow where you’ve made the fire instead of letting him fall in. You sit him at one of the stones circling the firepit and fill him a cup of water as he shakes. He lets you tilt his head side to side, look into his eyes, give him a once-over. He’s not injured that you can tell, just exhausted and dehydrated.

“Slowly on that water,” you warn him, and then sit back down, poke at the fire, and wait for him to talk.

The trainees are all out with Marja, practicing endurance. You know you could keep up with them, though it would be unpleasant—you’ve gotten too accustomed to city work—but your bad shoulder had been flaring up that morning and Marja’d agreed you should stay behind. You’d heard Grizzop as he left with a friend of his, Sophia’s dwarf kid, tossing riddles at each other and laughing, and it had put you in a good mood. You sit there trying to puzzle one of them out yourself and restraining your curiosity about the man—you know it’s both the strategic and the pious thing to wait for him to initiate the conversation, but Lady help you, patience has never been one of your strong suits.

“Thank you,” he comes out with finally. He’s still hoarse but the shaking’s died down a bit in favor of gentle swaying. He looks ready to fall asleep on that uncomfortable rock. “You a paladin?”

You strike your breastplate twice emphatically, enjoy the ring of it, and he rolls his eyes a bit. You smirk right back at him.

“Can I give you anything?”

“Could use some healing,” he says. “But I’ll be out of your hair after that. Should keep moving.”

“Are you on the run? Anything I should know about?”

He’s trying not to look shifty, but you’ve dealt with enough thieves and bandits to be able to read him, not to mention that he really shouldn’t be in this part of the woods this time of the year, if he knows what’s good for him. He’s definitely got someone after him, and you’re mentally running through your options if he makes a break for it, whether to go for the kill or a kneecap or just let him go. You don’t think he will, though; he’s dead tired and trusts you, whether from the water or from the symbol on your chest.

He says, “Nothing as high up as what you deal with. I can handle it.”

You sigh, but he’s been nothing but respectful and there’s no bounties out right now that match his description. You reach a hand out slowly and at the same time reach out for your lady. There’s that familiar sharpening of your senses, a sudden clarity and brightness to the world, as you heal him.

“Artemis,” you intone, “hear me, be kind, and come with strength for our footsteps.” When you take your hand back, the man has stopped swaying. He shakes his head as if to clear it, sits up a bit straighter.

“You want something to eat?” you ask. Technically, the students are supposed to be supplying their own food, but you and Marja both remember being their age and have squirreled away a bit extra.

He does, as it turns out. You give him some jerky and return to your pigeon. He’s politely, charmingly grateful, but subsides quickly when you don’t engage, and he doesn’t seem to be about to offer any information about himself. That’s his right, but you still sneak glances over occasionally as you move about the camp. You swear you recognize him from somewhere.

You guest ends up falling asleep curled up by the fire. You don’t trust him enough to leave him to it altogether, but you find yourself jobs that are easy on your arm to last through to the afternoon, and you’re chopping carrots to add them in with the potatoes when the hunting party returns.

Marja jerks her head towards him as they enter the clearing and raises her eyebrows, but you shake your head _later_ and turn to your trainees. They really are a good bunch, effective at working together, and they’ve brought home easily enough to keep you all in protein for the next few days while you round up the deer you’ve left to roam in between festivals. You take over supervising them to give Marja a break; she takes a seat on the rock next to the sleeping man and starts sharpening her knife, admirably casually.

Once they’ve dropped off their weapons and assembled by their catch again, you lead them in prayer and they raggedly join: “Artemis, shooter of deer, we entreat you, Zeus’s fair-haired daughter, master of the beasts of the wild—” You can hear at least two stomachs grumbling as you chant, but among the many wonderful things about your lady is that the prayer after the successful hunt is among the shortest of her already short prayers, and they’re soon back to skinning their animals and bickering good-naturedly about recipes.

Grizzop’s not the only one without any memories of home cooking, but he throws his support behind his dwarven friend—Sofia, that’s their name—and triumphantly heads for the pan you’ve left on the fire bearing a grisly pile of cubed rabbit meat. You’ve turned back to the other trainees and are watching them toss potatoes at each other—Anne proudly catches three in one hand and starts tossing them to herself—when you hear a panicked yell from behind you and whip around.

The man at the fire has woken up and is lying, frozen, before Grizzop. You can’t see Grizzop’s face, but you can see him quivering from here, and the man looks _scared_. Marja’s staring confused at Grizzop, who drops the meat into the pan seemingly without breaking eye contact with him and draws his bow, as quick and smooth as you’ve taught him.

“ _You_ ,” he says, and nocks an arrow. Marja puts a hand out and you start forward—you’ve given him food at your fire, he’s slept in front of you, and he may not be pack but he’s still your _guest_ —

The man looks over to you—he’s still terrified. “Hey, paladin,” he says, quiet and shaky, “call this one off, yeah? I’ve clearly overstayed my welcome. I can take a hint.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” says Grizzop, “ _move_.” He’s still shaking, you can see as you move slowly towards him, but his arm is steady and he’s aiming straight for the man’s eye.

“Grizzop,” you murmur. His ear flicks back to you but he doesn’t acknowledge you otherwise. “Do you know him?” He’d read as gray but good enough for your welcome, but you’re remembering how you found Grizzop, once, when he was smaller than the bow he’s holding now. You did not get the impression then that he’d been much accustomed to receiving kindness from the humans he’d met.

Grizzop doesn’t move. He’s holding his stance and his arms still don’t shake too noticeably—good lad—and he’s still staring at the man. You turn to him again. “Tell us why he shouldn’t shoot you.”

The man’s grinning, and it’s half an attempt at charm and half that terror freezing his face into a grimace. “You’d have to clean me up, then, and I’ll probably go _everywhere_. Probably ruin your stew. I’ll get out as soon as you tell him.”

“Tell him yourself,” you say. For all Grizzop’s right, he can’t get his spells to work most of the time, you trust him to judge character even without the assistance of your lady. And you’ll go out on a limb and guess that this particular enmity is personal.

The man’s grimace turns into a sneer. He faces Grizzop again and opens his mouth to speak, but before he can get any words out, Grizzop addresses him again.

“You have five seconds,” he says, colder than moonlight. “Five.”

The man _bolts_ , from crouched on the ground to full-on pelting faster than an ordinary person would be able to track. He reaches tree cover in the blink of an eye, but you can hear him crashing through the undergrowth as he runs, making no attempt to hide. Grizzop follows him with his eyes, but he’s put the arrow back in his quiver.

You step closer to him, reach out your hand, but he still doesn’t turn to you. His face has gone stiller than you’ve ever seen it, and you recognize his expression intimately. In his hand, his bow lights up, suddenly, and even in the late afternoon sunlight it shines bright and cold.

He turns to you, finally, just for a moment, and his face is ice. Then he takes off too, running at a dead sprint after him.

* * *

The other acolytes are reserved after that. You try to keep their minds on dinner, which isn’t hard to do at this time of day. After a few minutes, Marja pointedly jerks her head to the side of the clearing, but you shake your head, and she defers to you. He’s your kid, and you know him best.

As the sun starts to set and the shadows in your clearing start to lengthen, you set down your chopping board and wipe your knife clean, put it in its sheath. You nod at Marja and slip out of camp as silently and smoothly as your guest didn’t.

The man’s trail is easy to follow, even after an hour or so has passed; he’d been panicking and unskilled to begin with. Grizzop’s is less obvious, although it’s still not among his strong suits; his size has been on his side for once, but he’s still in training and he’s left signs of his passage. But you’ve hunted with him before, and he’s done better than he should have, than you knew he could, and you know exactly why.

The sun has set a bit more by the time you first find blood. The man had tripped, you think, bashed a knee or hand on a rock, and he’d gotten even more erratic after that. You don’t know where he was aiming for and you personally suspect he didn’t either. If anything, Grizzop’s trail gets harder to spot at this point. You think he smelled blood, and you know what that can do to a person in that state.

You pick your way through the leaf mold and fallen branches, carefully, but not with any particular stealth. Neither are you rushing, though—you know he can take care of himself, it’s what you’ve been training him to do since you met him, and you think you can work out what kind of catharsis he’s going to get out of this hunt.

The breeze picks up as the sun continues to set, and faintly, from very far off, you start to hear crashing in the leaves. You do freeze at that, for all the wind’s in your favor, before carefully setting your boot in the crook of a low-hanging branch and hauling yourself up into the canopy. You can feel your lady more strongly, now, as a sharpness in your mind, and you balance yourself on your branch, lower your face, and raise your hands to her.

“Artemis, the lady of arrows, we pray to you in the hunt,” you chant, voice a bit shaky from the climb. “You, who delight in archery, lend strength to our arms. It will come about as you desire it.”

There’s a yell on the breeze, and a high cackle. You perch there, next to a busy spider, and watch the moon rise.

* * *

You find him an hour later, standing alone on a bare clifftop. You wait in the shadows, standing at the base of the slope, and watch him swaying, like a young tree in the breeze. The night is quiet, for a forest, and still, and beautiful. The constellations hang fixed in their places, and you know all their names.

You’ve made noise on your way up, but his gaze is fixed unwavering on the sky. You’ll have to bring this up in his debrief—you don’t care what state he’s in, you could be _anybody_.

You’d stumbled across the man a couple minutes ago, almost literally—it’s fully dark now, and his outline against the trees had not been the right shape—and followed Grizzop’s erratic path to this hill. Your nose is still full of the scent of the man’s blood and your mind with the sharper, full-blown cousin of the savage joy you got when Anne learned how to juggle or Grizzop landed his first bullseye. The pack succeeds together.

When Grizzop speaks you nearly miss it—he’s got a carrying voice at the best of times, but he’s not facing you and he’s certainly not speaking to you. “Thank you. I—I owe you one, yeah?”

There’s a pause, during which you notice that the forest really is quieter than it has any right to be. Then:

“Right. Thank you for clarifying, much appreciated. I will get right on that.”

When he speaks again, his voice is thicker. “If you don’t mind me asking, why didn’t you— why couldn’t I have done it earlier? When he was first… when there were people for me to—” He raises a hand to rub at his nose. “I had a responsibility, right, to defend them, and I didn’t, ‘cause I couldn’t, but now I _can_. I’m strong and fast and I can _heal_ , now, sometimes at least, thanks a lot for _that_.” You wince. “But so are Eva and Sofia and everyone else, they don’t _need_ me to be able to do that for them. The whole _point_ of you, I thought, was defending the weak, not hanging about with people who don’t need help. But they _did_ need help, and where were you then? Weren’t they my pack? Didn’t I, didn’t I _love_ them enough?”

Ah. Well. You’re glad he’s taking questions like these straight to the source, at least. You’re not sure any of your superiors could have dealt with that one. And your lady does value directness.

Gods, this explains a lot. And you think now you can remember where you recognized the man from—he held a minor local office, maybe, or was related to someone who did. You’ve seen him on the dais at public festivals. Toll collector? Might be worth following up to make sure nothing gets traced back to the Cult, although on second thought it might be better first to ask Grizzop about the murder he’s just committed.

Grizzop speaks up again. He’s still crying, you can hear it in his voice, but he’s a bit less hysterical. “All right, I understand, I guess. That sounds difficult. _I_ wouldn’t want to get in trouble with your dad.” Another pause, during which you assume he’s being instructed yet again on the _very straightforward_ nature of fate and what the gods can do about it.

He giggles—she likes him, you take it—and sniffles. “But thank you anyway. And I’ll… I’ll be good, right? I’ll do those prayers Eva does, and I’ll listen to her, and I’ll think warm thoughts about everyone even when they’re being irritating, or whatever. I’ll get you some nice doves next full moon. Maybe I can find some new people to defend, yeah? Like we’re supposed to.”

You notice then that Grizzop is glowing, slightly, in the moonlight. The moonbeams seem to bend towards him, contrary to what your eyes want to tell you. She’s not a subtle god. The silence in the forest is so absolute now you can hear him breathing, and it delights you beyond reason, despite yourself, his being alive and here, near you, in communion with your lady.

You hear a fresh sob, and when he speaks again, he sounds ardent and solemn and awed. “Apology accepted,” he says, to the moon. “Really nice doves, then.”

At that you do snort, before you can stop yourself. You can see his ears, silhouetted in front of the moon, perk up at that, and he finally turns over his shoulder to find you. He sees you, and he looks…

Well. He looks like he just saw a god.

You stare at him, unsure of what he wants, if he’s grown enough in the past few hours not to need you anymore. He turns fully, then, takes a few steps, and although he’s shell-shocked and moon-drunk he moves more gracefully and smoothly than you’ve ever seen him. You step out from under the tree cover into the direct light of your lady, and you shiver under the weight of it.

For a moment, you stand looking at each other, and you can feel, wound tight as a bowstring, your connection to every pack member scattered through the forest and to your lady driving her chariot through the sky and to every photon of moonlight as it hits your skin. It feels _wonderful_ , so big you feel you can’t contain it, like the limits of your self will shatter. You wouldn’t even _mind_.

But the glow on Grizzop’s skin fades, and the breeze picks back up, and you hear a cricket several feet to your right sound so loud you almost jump; and he runs down the slight slope towards you. You kneel down and catch him in your arms and he cries into your shoulder as you arrange your arms around his quiver to hold him as tightly as you can. You’re pretty sure what he’s sticky with in places is blood, but to be honest it gives you more smug satisfaction than you think it should. And this shirt needed washing anyway. Not for the first time, you worry about your innate parental instincts.

Eventually, he pulls back from you. He’s too embarrassed to meet your eyes, you think. You both fidget for a moment until you end up sitting side-by-side on the soft grass of the hill, looking up at the moon together where it’s rolling over a sea of trees. You’ve got your arm around him still, and he is _ice_ cold.

“Good talk?” you ask, after a minute or two.

“Yeah. I don’t know how much you heard. Sorry if I’ve, like, made you look bad, in front of her.” He jerks his chin upwards, and you refrain from elbowing him. You think he’s gained as much respect for your lady as he’s likely to, at least in one evening. You think if he’s going to learn any more, it’s not going to be from anything you can teach him.

“It’s between you and her,” you say. “You can deal with her on your own terms.” You hum a snatch of the litany for the new moon, think pointedly about yesterday’s rabbits, and heal him, just in case. “Do you… want to talk about—” You gesture with your free hand to the blood now smeared all over your shirt.

“Oh, sorry about that.” You wave it off.

“He was,” Grizzop says, and stops. You hold him a little tighter and look back at the sky, give him a moment, find Orion and trace each of his stars.

“His brother works for the Meritocrats, maintaining the dikes. Delegated him to ‘control the unwanted population’ under Amsterdam.” The way he says that phrase, you think he’s hearing it in someone else’s voice. “He didn’t even really do anything to me, right, but he took a… a personal interest, in doing his job. So I’ve, I’ve seen him around.”

He rubs at his nose. “He _deserved_ it, Eva. Even _she_ agreed. It was the consequence for what he’s done. But I hadn’t… ‘s different, isn’t it. When it’s a person. Even one like him.”

You can only very faintly remember feeling this way after your first just hunt. Someday very soon, he won’t remember this guilt either. But for now: “It sounds to me like he was a threat, Grizzop. That’s what we’re supposed to do, as a pack. We kill predators. Even if it’s personal. And like our lady said,” you guess, “it’s her job to put us in their paths. We find the people we’re supposed to—that’s fate—and she makes sure it happens. Like I found you, and like you found him. _Mortals must bear the gifts of the gods, for they are far greater than we._ ”

Grizzop joins in on the tail end of a dactyl. You grin a bit—he _cannot_ carry a tune, despite your best efforts—and let go of him for a second to reach into your pack for some water. He drinks slowly, like he’s been trained to, and you sit in silence for a few more minutes, under the light of your lady.

* * *

Grizzop sticks his tongue out at the spiky silhouette when you pass it on your way back. Your dormant parental instincts kick back in a moment after another surge of satisfaction at his successful hunt, but you ignore them. He deserves this. You both crunch on through the undergrowth, making no attempt at stealth. You’re worn out after such close proximity, even if only for a few moments, and you can only imagine where Grizzop’s at.

The body’s going to be an issue. If he’d really gone corrupt, you’ll have a solid case back at the temple, and of course you’ll all back Grizzop up if Meritocratic officers come around. Grizzop’ll have to go to the temple of Zeus to see about the murder of a guest. That will be fine—your lady knows how to intercede for her favorites.

You wonder what your lady sent after that man, or who. You wonder how long before his brother’s running from some long-eared shade, too.

“Eva,” Grizzop says, a few minutes after you pass the body, “do you know about— you must, sorry, but do you know about Achilles?”

“Tell me about Achilles,” you say. In fact you’re the one who taught him about Achilles. Maybe he doesn’t remember.

“Achilles was a half-elf,” Grizzop says, “who fought in the great war at Troy, before the Meritocrats or anything, where the gods fought too, and he came with the Greeks across the sea. And he knew his destiny from his mother, because she was a great sorcerer: he knew that he could either live a safe life and die without accomplishing anything at all, or he could go to Troy and die, but he would be remembered forever.” He’s sleepy and his voice is softer than usual. You’re having to concentrate on your feet as you pick your way through the leaves, but his footsteps beside you are sure.

“But, but he didn’t know how long he could live if he didn’t go to Troy. He could have lived hundreds of years, probably, if he didn’t, or maybe only way less than that, but if he went, he knew he would be immortal forever, in songs. So he had the choice. But it wasn’t really a choice, was it? He couldn’t ever choose anything other than what he was meant to, because of who he was. So the gods offered him a gift, the gift of knowledge, but it couldn’t really help him in the end.” You hadn’t gone this far in your lesson. You’re glad he didn’t take _this_ one up with your lady earlier.

“Why do you think he had to choose how he did?” you ask. At heart, you’re still his teacher.

“I think he was scared,” Grizzop says. “He was scared to die but he was more scared to die for no reason, without ever having had a reason.”

“What do we call him in songs?” you ask.

“ _Swift-footed Achilles_ ,” he says. “He was trying to outrun death.”

“It caught up to him.”

“But only after he did what he was supposed to. He did everything he needed to, and then he died.”

“And what,” you say, not sure how much he realizes what he’s saying, “did he need to do?”

“He died without owing anyone anything. He had his revenge, and he died a hero. He died knowing that he’d done enough to live forever.”

You walk on in the moonlight. Grizzop’s drooping, now, and you wonder if he would ever forgive you if you offered to carry him like you used to. You decide asking for help is part of the maturation process and leave it.

“She’s all right,” he says. You duck under a branch; he doesn’t. “I haven’t been fair to her. I can see better now what you’ve been saying about her, about her being important. Like we’re part of something bigger. She was so…” He waves his hand, sketches an arc through the air. “She’s beautiful.”

You sneak a glance at his face, and he’s gone star-struck again. You make yet another mental note to bring him to your temple’s small library—he should read about Actaeon. It’s dangerous to look at a god, even one who loves you. You can get stuck on it. Or it can catch up with you, even if you survive the first impact. The Fates hate a loose end.

“I don’t think I mind owing her,” he says.

You laugh. “You’d have a hell of a time breaking even, Grizzop, with all the gold and goodwill in the world.”

The walk is much longer on the way back than you think it should be, geographically speaking. Towards the end you produce, from an inner pocket, a paper bag of marshmallows. Grizzop is overjoyed. You high five.

* * *

Marja’s sitting up by the fire when you make it back. She sees you coming, gives a tired wave, and heads for her hammock before you even reach her. You do as headcount as you stretch—the trainees are all there, and you notice that your shoulder doesn’t twinge as you roll it. Auspicious. If you'd been in any doubt about whether she approves of what happened this evening, this'd put paid to that.

Grizzop reaches to take off his breastplate and, seemingly for the first time, notices the amount of blood on him. You lift it off of him and then stop.

“Grizzop,” you say. “The hunt.”

He stares blankly at you for a second before he remembers. In a whisper, he leads you in the prayer after the successful hunt, and you join in: “Huntress of the golden arrows, and the echoing chase…” It’s still a short prayer.

When it’s done, you hand him back his breastplate. “You’re going to have to clean this yourself,” you say. “And you _need_ to be more aware of your surroundings. I could have killed you five different ways on that hill.”

His grin is so wide. “I promise to do better next time a god tries to seduce me.” You swat at his ear and he ducks away.

“Good night, Grizzop.”

“G’night, Eva.”

You fall into your own hammock. Between the trees, you can see your lady’s chariot, heading now for the sea. And when you close your eyes, and find yourself breathing with your pack again, you can hear Grizzop’s grin in the exhale.

**Author's Note:**

> Grizzop: hey bro do _you_ know what our life expectancy is?  
> Vesseek: .................i've got some bad news bud
> 
> With apologies to Homer and thanks to the RQG channels on RQ's official Discord, where I have spent _far_ too many hours being maudlin about Grizzop.


End file.
